Dumbing down in UK education

[Galatea92]

Yes indeed, welcome to the forum, Galatea92!

Thank you

Galatea92: In humans, the brain has extra levels of feedback that you don't get in other animals, which explains our extra degrees of freedom, but we're not the only animals with brains.

It's these 'extras' I don't like. So what? We're more developed. What makes the 'extras'?

I don't understand what you're saying here. What don't you like about the 'extras'? Are you asking for more technical detail, or is the last question just rhetorical?

Again, are we talking about anything more than attributing to animals terms normally applied to humans? What does memory mean to humans? The memory of humans is infinitely more complex than anything you can apply to any animal: we can twist memory, tear it to pieces, deny it, do to it whatever 'extras' we choose.

I'm a bit confused by your agrument, I'm afraid. Are you really saying that the term memory should only ever be used when talking about humans?

By the way, I disagree that the memory of humans is 'infinitely' more complex; the greater complexity is quite finite. The difference between humans and animals in all these areas is a difference in degree, not a difference in quality.

[Sybarite]

To reiterate what others have said – welcome indeed, Galatea92 and thank you for your erudite and clearly explained posts.

I'd add pigs to the list of problem-solving animals – some experiments a few years ago (in the wake of the film Babe, amazingly – scientists wanted to see whether pigs were intelligent enough to do what sheepdogs do), showed that pigs could solve simplified computer games for the reward of M&Ms (I kid you not). Fascinating stuff.

I've seen cats and dogs solve problems, but I was attempting to avoid such anecdotes earlier, because I know that they can be open to anthropomorphism.

Eric – primates are not monkeys, although that's the sort of erroneous language (deliberate or otherwise) that fundamentalist creationists and anti-Darwinists have used over the years.

You claim that: "Western science, when used properly, can still leave room for God, spirituality, love, creation, etc". One wonders when western science has suggested that there isn't room for love or even "spirituality" (whatever that means).

Why do people do various experiments? Why do people climb Everest? Why do people dive into the deepest oceans in tiny craft, risking serious physical pain and potentially death as the pressure changes? Why do we attempt to explore space?

If we didn't do these things – if it was not, apparently, a human trait to explore and probe and learn – we'd be stuck in caves.

"Some of us put hope in a life beyond". Hope of what? What evidence do you have for any such hope of anything "beyond"?

It's amusing – and rather sad, really – that you seem to think that science has reduced everything to electrical impulses etc; that science and a scientific understanding and appreciation of the world (and the universe) excludes a sense of "mystery". Does the fact that I personally think that there is no god/s mean that, when I look at the aurora borealis or the Milky Way, I don't feel a sense of awe? Does it fiddlesticks. Does the absence of a belief in some supernatural paternal being mean that I cannot be stunned almost to tears by the experience of swimming with fish for the first time? Does it bunk. Nature (evolution and all) is awesome – it doesn't need a god to make it so. There doesn't 'have to be something more' (how greedy is that?) in order for life (particularly for most of us in the developed world) to be extraordinary and full of potential.

By all means choose what you want to believe if you think that it gives your life some sort of meaning, but please do not be so disingenuous as to pretend that only people who believe in some sort of god and afterlife are capable of appreciating life or of feeling awe or of comprehending that we do not know everything (or anything like it). There are plenty of mysteries – but the presence of things that we do not (yet) understand is not some sort of evidence for a god or an afterlife.

Lionel – on memory, did you not read what I posted about the gorilla remembering its dead kitten years later? How would you describe that if not as an example of memory, in a way that we as humans would recognise?

[Eric]

Galatea92, in #99, is still arguing in a reductionist manner. However complex or elaborate a machine you regard the brain, it still becomes a machine, by this argument, without a soul in the metaphysical or religious sense.

That is the watershed: either we have a separate spirit or soul, or the brain is a computer, down to the tiniest electrical charge. It's either-or, there's no "sort of" or compromise possible. Either your brain reacts to impulses, or there is a separate moral and metaphysical world, run by someone we call "God" for convenience.

You either bet on one, or on the other. The afterlife is nice, but we can't tell if it's true in rational terms until we're dead. No one has sent messages back to tell us all conclusively that there's life after death, so that solves that problem: you fall back on what you believe, as there is no empirical evidence available, one way or the other.

Endless discussion cannot solve this fundamental problem. Nice to while away an evening in the pub, but no certainties can be gained. Belief is something that informs religions such as Christianity. You can't force it onto people or take it away. Even theologians, with endless rational arguments, such as Thomas Aquinas, cannot make people believe where they don't. Again, you either believe or you don't. But those who do not believe should not belittle those who do. Because of certain very problematical aspects of certain religions this decade, some people appear to want to throw the baby out with the font water.

Sybarite, I deliberately used the word "monkey" to provoke the pedants. I think I knew by the age of 12 that apes are not monkeys and the latter have tails. And primates are bishops.

I like creatures for what they are, whether we're talking about silverfish, hedgehogs or cats. I do not go around measuring their nerve impulses to see if there's something in them that resembles human behaviour. All this nerve impulse stuff may be useful for stem-cell and similar medical research, but for everyday life the whole question seems quite sterile.

I'm not against people doing seemingly pointless things, such as climbing Everest, as long as they allow me to translate Estonian literature (an equally "pointless" activity). But there is more to mankind than the "because it's there" quest for the next frontier. Sometimes we have to examine what we already have.

A agree that awe does not necessarily have an automatic link-up with belief in God. But it does make you wonder what deep impulse tickles those nerve-endings to bring tears to your eyes.

As for space travel, it would be nice if we thought harder about how to sort out our problems on this Earth, instead of forever thinking about running away to the next planet or solar system when we mess up this one.

[titania7]

, As for space travel, it would be nice if we thought harder about how to sort out our problems on this Earth, instead of forever thinking about running away to the next planet or solar system when we mess up this one.

Eric,
You've made many valid points. I could address several of them. But for now, I'm focusing on the statement above. I think what is all boils down to is people accepting responsibility for their lives and for the choices they make. We can blame society and the world we live in and do nothing, or we can stop complaining and take action. We complain about all the homeless people in the world, but how many of them would we be willing to give shelter to? Yes, there are people without food to eat. We can blame the economy or we can choose to share some of our food with them. We've lost sight, I think, of the common bond we have as humans. Even on this thread, there's a lot of nit-picking going on.
As I've oft-times noticed before, the most open-minded people can be the least tolerant of opinions that are different than their own. You make an apt point about it being wrong to belittle belief and faith that is connected to spirituality. Can we possibly say, in all fairness, that it's more commendable to not believe in God than it is to believe in him? We all are entitled to make personal choices. If we take away that freedom,
we have a dictatorship.

I recently ran into a woman at a grocery store who was so upset that Obama was now the president elect that she says she's going to move to Australia during the time he is in office. Why? What possible purpose would that serve? If she wants to change our political system, she ought to start doing volunteer work for her political party. But it's so easy to sit up and whine rather than stand up and take action. I think we all have the responsibility to try to make the world a better, more compassionate place. It's a shame and disgrace that so many people are so busy "looking out for #1" (i.e., themselves) that they don't care about anything that doesn't concern them.

More thoughts at a later date....

Galatea92, welcome! Nice avatar, by the way.

Cheers,
Titania

[Galatea92]

Galatea92, in #99, is still arguing in a reductionist manner. However complex or elaborate a machine you regard the brain, it still becomes a machine, by this argument, without a soul in the metaphysical or religious sense.

That is the watershed: either we have a separate spirit or soul, or the brain is a computer, down to the tiniest electrical charge. It's either-or, there's no "sort of" or compromise possible. Either your brain reacts to impulses, or there is a separate moral and metaphysical world, run by someone we call "God" for convenience.

No. What is reductionist is that simple either/or that you keep insisting on. If there is no separate soul that lives on after our deaths, as I believe, then our moral sense, our artistic sense, comes from somewhere else. They don't go away just because we stop believing in the soul.

I'm happy to use the words 'soul' or 'spirit', for convenience, because they convey something meaningful about my subjective experience. And most of the time you and I would probably mean pretty much the same thing when we used those words. But I would never use them to mean 'something of me that continues to exist after my physical body had died'. All of my experience and all of my (little) learning convinces me that the wish for immortality is just that, a wish, a fairy story. And I would rather base my understanding of the world, and my moral sense, on truth rather than a fairy story (however much I might enjoy the fairy story ).

[lionel]

I don't understand what you're saying here. What don't you like about the 'extras'? Are you asking for more technical detail, or is the last question just rhetorical?

No, I suppose it's not just rhetorial, and I'm not so sure that most differences between us on this issue aren't purely semantic. Our, er, main bone of contention, perhaps, is the difference and/or the similarity between human animals and non-human animals, isn't it? You believe that the human brain provides autonomy (which I don't dispute), and say that 'In humans, the brain has extra levels of feedback', and that we have 'extra degrees of freedom'. Where does the extra come from, if not evolution? If you don't believe that evolution began as an unimaginable number of reflexes, then what happened? You don't appear to believe that there is an irrational (religious, supernatural, etc) reason for what happened, so what could it have been if not some kind of development ultimately stemming from reflexes?[/quote]

I'm a bit confused by your agrument, I'm afraid. Are you really saying that the term memory should only ever be used when talking about humans?

No, of course not: 'memory' is an easy word to use for lower forms of life, and it makes sense, but as a form of shorthand in comparison to what's happening in human consciousness it's both misleading and wholly inadequate.

By the way, I disagree that the memory of humans is 'infinitely' more complex; the greater complexity is quite finite.

Why? (I'm talking about potential, which of course as far as I know hasn't yet been realised.)

[Galatea92]

To reiterate what others have said ? welcome indeed, Galatea92 and thank you for your erudite and clearly explained posts.

Thank you. I've never been called erudite before. I'll frame that compliment and put it on the mantelpiece.

[Galatea92]

Galatea92, welcome! Nice avatar, by the way.

Thank you. Yes, she's very pretty, isn't she. She's a Japanese writer called Kanehara Hitomi, apparently.

[lionel]

Lionel ? on memory, did you not read what I posted about the gorilla remembering its dead kitten years later? How would you describe that if not as an example of memory, in a way that we as humans would recognise?

'ang on. I already called this a grey area on at least one occasion. But then, I don't see why this shouldn't be included with the reflex sytem. Don't know about humans remembering kids, but if fifty grand was in it...

[Sybarite]

'ang on. I already called this a grey area on at least one occasion. But then, I don't see why this shouldn't be included with the reflex sytem. Don't know about humans remembering kids, but if fifty grand was in it...

Lionel, I'm really not sure what you think is "grey" about this.

Are you suggesting that the language experiments were flawed? Or that the scientists were biased and reported their observations wrongly? Or just weren't as good at their jobs as you'd have been?

I'm afraid I'm missing your reasoning here.

Eric ? you suggested earlier that "some of us put hope in a life beyond". Is your life that dismal and disappointing that you feel the need to "put hope" in myths and superstition?

If not, what do you feel is missing that requires you to put your "hope" in a further form of existence? What is so unsatisfactory about your life that you need some form of "hope" for something else?

I note that you haven't even attempted to answer the question I asked earlier ? as to why there has to "be more" than this life? You stated as much ? so why?

Generally ? I'm intrigued that some people seem really bothered by the idea of the closeness of humans to our non-human cousins. And, indeed, to the idea of other non-human animals having emotions or intelligence or memory. Is this scary somehow? Why? Do we need to try to quash thoughts about this because we're frightened that, if we don't, we'll somehow lose our 'superiority' ? that we'll become less than what we are as a species?

[lionel]

Lionel, I'm really not sure what you think is "grey" about this.

Let's say, for example, that life on Earth began with one cell, which we'll call white, and eventually progressed to the human, at present the highest form of life, which we'll call black. All I mean is that there's a significant but very vague line somewhere when the non-human animal shades into the human: enter the gorilla, for instance, which, although human-like, is not human. Call it grey: what's wrong with that? Has anyone really come close to discovering where 'the join' is? That's not rhetorical, it's a genuine question, but I'm pretty certain it can't be gorillas: far too many differences. There must have been a tremendous number of transitions between the two, and cavemen or whatever must come in here, but they can't be studied directly because they've probably been wiped out, like so many life forms in the past.

[sara]

Eric – you suggested earlier that "some of us put hope in a life beyond". Is your life that dismal and disappointing that you feel the need to "put hope" in myths and superstition?

If not, what do you feel is missing that requires you to put your "hope" in a further form of existence? What is so unsatisfactory about your life that you need some form of "hope" for something else?

I am really sorry to intrude and I am afraid this might sound silly and totally off-topic
- plus I am not Eric, apparently -
it's just that this part made me wonder.
I 've always been under the impression that "hope in a life beyond" results -for some people, as Eric said- from their fear of dying and not their dissatisfaction about their lives as they are.
You don't hope for an afterlife because your current life, well, sucks, but because you fear the "unknown". Or what happens "next", when all biological functions come to an end. Or whatever.
(Believing in a further form of existence can also be helpful to people who have lost loved-ones and find it difficult -or eventually impossible- to cope with their deaths.
It might sound irrational or frustrating to people who 'd rather be sensible about everything, but those reactions are very common.)

So, I 've got to ask: what does being unsatisfied with your life have to do with the faith in afterlife? (regardless of where this faith derives from: religion, superstition, "pure stupidity" etc)
I can see how sad, miserable, frustrated, dissatisfied, disappointed people can have suicidal tendencies, but I personally always thought that suicide is commited in order to end this very frustration and misery on earth, and not necessarily in hope of a better life beyond.
And judging from my little experience with psychology, I am pretty sure that people who lead happy and satisfactory lives are more likely to fear death, the "unknown" that follows it, or whatever you may call it.


Again, I might have lost the point of your conversation entirely, it's just that this particular point made no sense to me.
Please, do correct me if you feel that I took it out of context.

[Galatea92]

Let's say, for example, that life on Earth began with one cell, which we'll call white, and eventually progressed to the human, at present the highest form of life, which we'll call black. All I mean is that there's a significant but very vague line somewhere when the non-human animal shades into the human: enter the gorilla, for instance, which, although human-like, is not human. Call it grey: what's wrong with that? Has anyone really come close to discovering where 'the join' is? That's not rhetorical, it's a genuine question, but I'm pretty certain it can't be gorillas: far too many differences. There must have been a tremendous number of transitions between the two, and cavemen or whatever must come in here, but they can't be studied directly because they've probably been wiped out, like so many life forms in the past.

Remember that you've got all other life forms to fit into that spectrum between white and black: single-celled organisms over on the white side, then simple multi-cellular organisms like sponges, the whole of the plant kingdom, all the fungi and moulds, animals with rudimentary brains like jellyfish, insects, snails, complex mammals like cats and dogs; and over on the black side you've got gorillas and humans. When you take the whole range of living beings into account, then gorillas and humans would both be a shade of grey indistinguishable from black.

[Eric]

Sybarite #110: you should not use the sleight of hand whereby this life must be downright miserable if you want to hope for an afterlife. That is a form of wish-fulfilment, i.e. thinking that what these religious fools say about their post-death utopia must mean they are living in a mud hut wrestling with mental illness, varookas and the odd scorpion. You can keep feeling sorry for me if you wish; I will allow that. For my part, I feel sorry for those who cannot read Estonian books in the original language, but I don't claim that their lives are wholly miserable...

Seriously though (one shouldn't approach matters of life and death with humour, God forbid), I'm not afraid of dying except on two counts: a) the pain involved; b) if I felt I'd not achieved very much in this life. What I cannot really warm to is the idea that the afterlife is some kind of therapy, approved of by government-appointed control freaks to keep down savage impulses and compensate for failure, so that the rest of us are not disturbed by dysfunctional people. This is nudging in the direction of "Brave New World" with religion being a palliative drug to keep the restive masses quiet.

Personally, I talk to what Sybarite so gloriously terms "non-human animals", in the same way as Prince Charles is supposed to talk to plants. You only get a slightly more convincing response from a cat than from a geranium, but I don't think, with every utterance, that I am experimenting to find out whether the cat has emotions. Of course it has. You don't need scientists to tell you that.

*

As for suicide (Sara #112), logically speaking you would expect mass suicides from religious people to hurry them on to the next life. ("This way please across the Styx.") Yet it seems that many of the most balanced people keep a small flame of religion and belief alight and try to cope with life this time round. (I am not talking about misguided religious fanatics, nor those who expect free bouts of intercourse with over seventy people who have never had sex before, once they've crossed the threshold into bliss.) Yes, suicides tend to want to end what's here, and don't necessarily think about the next life. As long as they can escape from this one.

This is all relevant to dumbing down. In a down-dumbed society, everything would be reduced to soundbite science and scorn for that irrational pastime, religion, in order to laud science as our only saviour. Most modern Christian theology tends to suggest that we have to blend science with belief, so that we achieve goals on this Earth too. We don't want God-given rules that shut out all striving and achievement down here, nor do we want to live in a space where, theoretically, we are so free from constraints that we lapse into despair and anarchy, out of a kind of amoral boredom.

[lionel]

Remember that you've got all other life forms to fit into that spectrum between white and black: single-celled organisms over on the white side, then simple multi-cellular organisms like sponges, the whole of the plant kingdom, all the fungi and moulds, animals with rudimentary brains like jellyfish, insects, snails, complex mammals like cats and dogs; and over on the black side you've got gorillas and humans.

Yes, I'd included them all in with it: we (forms of life, that is) arrive by different routes...

When you take the whole range of living beings into account, then gorillas and humans would both be a shade of grey indistinguishable from black.

Not exactly, because we can all tell the difference can't we? We are the blackest of black, but gorillas just don't quite make it .

[Sybarite]

... So, I 've got to ask: what does being unsatisfied with your life have to do with the faith in afterlife? ...

I think that fear of death is a valid point, Sara ? but perhaps particularly in terms of a sense of the finality of it, which idea distresses a lot of people. So the idea of some sort of afterlife is a comfort on that account. It avoids the intrusion of (for some) uncomfortable reality. Otherwise, I'm sure the majority of us would share the fear of a painful death.

But "hope" suggests, to me, that there is something unsatisfactory in the here and now ? particularly when used in a phrase such as "some of us put hope in a life beyond". It sounds like the old 'pie in the sky when we die' routine ? 'oh, it might not be great now, but there's hope for the future'. If we have to hope for something beyond our life, then it suggests that we think that that life is not all it could be. It's a message that the church has been teaching for years ? 'it doesn't matter if your life on Earth is crap; it'll be lovely in Heaven ? just as long as you're good now and don't ever do any of the things that we tell you not to do etc'.

As for modern theology (Christian at least) ? it's mostly struggling to come to terms with philosophy and science, and how science, particularly since 1859, has been eating away at any claims to 'reality' that religion has made for centuries. It's a bit like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. It is struggling to explain, for instance, how a supposedly loving god could possibly actually create a world where it knew that, x years down the line, a natural disaster would kill hundreds of thousands of people, including many infants and children. More people now question such things than have before ? and theologians are struggling to keep their heads above water, so to speak. In the wake of the Asian tsunami, assorted clerics and theologians were hauled into radio and TV studios to 'explain' it ? none could. All struggled. Attempting to explain something such as the Holocaust, one theologian even suggested the revolting idea that God allowed it to happen so that the Jews could show how dignified they could be in their suffering etc.

As for "non-human animals" ? in the context of this conversation, accuracy is useful. Anything else would be dumbing down. Who'd a thunk that Eric would apparently prefer that, since he thinks it oh-so-amusing to point out that some phraseology employed here is 'pedantic'.

One wonders if he's as bothered by accuracy in translation or whether he just uses the language that suits him at the time.

[Eric]

Here's a perfect example of the dumbing down of science in UK education, just to extract funding. What use is this research:

Dogs can be jealous, say scientists - Telegraph

Dr Paul Morris, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth who studies animal emotions, told The Sunday Times: "We are learning that dogs, horses, and perhaps many other species are far more emotionally complex than we ever realised. They can suffer simple forms of many emotions we once thought only primates could experience."

Anyone who has a pet dog (aka: enslaved non-human animal), a dray horse (conditioned traction creature), or who breeds cattle (to be eaten!) will be able to work that out. How much money has this pointless research cost the taxpayer and the private financiers of universities, when departments in the humanities are being closed down as "irrelevant"?

[Sybarite]

<snip>

'S'not fair. People shouldn't spend money on things I don't like or understand. They should spend it to pay me to translate more books.'

[sara]

Thank you for taking time to answer my question, Sybarite.
I see your point and this part

'oh, it might not be great now, but there's hope for the future'. If we have to hope for something beyond our life, then it suggests that we think that that life is not all it could be. It's a message that the church has been teaching for years – 'it doesn't matter if your life on Earth is crap; it'll be lovely in Heaven – just as long as you're good now and don't ever do any of the things that we tell you not to do etc'.

sounds true to me.

I am not really familiar with "dogmatic" religious teaching myself, so I would prefer not to comment on this any further.
(I grew up in a country where religion is very important and, what's more, very present all the time, even in the lives of atheists.
However, the greek-orthodox church/dogma is nowhere near the catholic church in terms of severity. And even though my own family is quite religious, I was not brought up with this sort of ideas.
But I do know that your observation is very true).

My thoughts on how hope in aftelife is a response to the fear of death (or a way to cope with the loss of loved ones) are mostly "empirical" (I mean that they derive from what I know about the people around me) and have not so much to do with the religious aspect of the matter.

[Galatea92]

Anyone who has a pet dog (aka: enslaved non-human animal), a dray horse (conditioned traction creature), or who breeds cattle (to be eaten!) will be able to work that out. How much money has this pointless research cost the taxpayer and the private financiers of universities, when departments in the humanities are being closed down as "irrelevant"?

I like "pointless" research, in the humanities and the sciences. I think it's the striving for "usefulness" that leads to dumbing-down.

Primary and secondary education is more and more focused on preparing children for life (see the following news report), and less and less on satisfying their intellectual curiosity. We're training a nation of good citizens - they don't really have time to be curious too.

Lessons in being happy proposed

And in higher education, the focus is on vocational training and profitable research. The English student who wants to do a PhD on 'Notions of the picturesque in 18th century Friesian poetry' is very much out of place. (Possibly rightly so ).